W-3 and W-2 visas

• The Senate’s immigration reform bill would replace the H-2A visa program with a portable at-will employment based visa (W-3 visa) and a contract-based visa (W-2 visa).

• These visas are for three years — previously they were only for 10 months — and can be extended up to six years.

• To register for the guest worker program, an employer submits an application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The employer will then be certified as a designated agricultural employer for three years and be able to submit a petition when they need to hire a guest worker.

• These three-year visas are capped at 112,000 per year or 337,000 total visas in a three-year period. The Secretary of Agriculture has authority to adjust the cap if there are labor shortages, providing needed flexibility.

• To account for different growing seasons, visas will be allocated evenly between four quarters of the fiscal year. Unused visas will roll-over into the next quarter within the same fiscal year.

• Administrative responsibility for the guest worker program shifts from the Department of Labor to the USDA. As part of this shift, Farm Service Agencies will provide technical assistance and help employers navigate the application process.

• A new national wage index will be developed to replace the Adverse Effect Wage Rate. The new index will compare wage rates within each agricultural occupation, instead of setting a blanket rate, regardless of occupational classification. New rates will be adjusted for inflation annually, but cannot increase more than 2.5 percent in any given year.

• Employers will now have the option of providing a housing stipend for guest workers, if they so choose, instead of being mandated to provide physical housing.

• Employers will still be required to first recruit and hire available U.S. workers.

Undocumented agriculture workers

• An estimated 50-70 percent of our current agricultural workforce is undocumented. This bill allows these workers to establish legal status and work authorization in order to stabilize the agriculture workforce.

• Undocumented farm workers who can demonstrate a minimum of 100 work days or 575 hours working in agriculture over the past two years would be eligible for an Agricultural Blue Card.

• Blue Card holders will be allowed to live and work in the country legally, and travel between the U.S. and their home country. These workers would have a faster path to citizenship than the broader undocumented population.

• In order to keep close families together, spouses and minor children of Blue Card holders would be eligible for Blue Card status.

• Blue Card holders who remain working in the agriculture industry are eligible for a green card after five years assuming they pass a background check and pay a fine. Blue Card holders must work at least 100 days per year for five years or 150 days per year for three years within the five-year period. This shorter pathway to green card status will incentivize workers to stay in agriculture instead of leaving for other industries.

Summary provided by Sen. Michael Bennet’s staff

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Much to the relief of local vegetable growers and dairymen, a federal guest worker program they say has done little to address labor shortages in agriculture appears to be going by the way side.

“It’s a change that’s long overdue,” said Dave Petrocco, a southern Weld County vegetable farmer, of the Senate’s immigration reform bill. Introduced last month, the bill would replace the existing H-2A visa program with another guest worker program.

Local producers — including Petrocco, who said he’s left hundreds of thousands of dollars in vegetables unharvested in recent years because he didn’t have enough workers to pick them — said they’re hoping the House’s version of an immigration reform bill also gives the boot to the H-2A program.

Vegetable growers need an influx of temporary workers to hand-harvest their crops in the fall, but said they’ve had difficulty finding employees locally who want to do the temporary job, and the existing federal H-2A program does little to bring in migrant workers and provide any relief.

They said the H-2A program is too costly — requiring employers to pay for migrant workers’ housing, among other expenses — and too cumbersome.

Local farmers for the most part have stopped using it, they said.

Noa Roman-Muniz, a Colorado State University dairy specialist and CSU assistant professor, said dairymen don’t like it for the same reasons, and also because the H-2A program only addresses seasonal labor. Milk producers need workers year-round. Roman-Muniz said dairymen are limited in what they can pay their workers, because they don’t get to set their own milk prices — they take a milk price set by the federal government.

Petrocco, who said he needs about 300 workers during peak harvest time, said he’d like to pay higher wages, but said he can’t raise the price of his vegetables to pay his workers what he’d like to.

The Senate’s immigration reform bill would replace the H-2A visa program with a portable, at-will, employment-based visa — the W-3 visa — and a contract-based visa — the W-2 visa.

Those visas would be good for three years — the H-2A is only good for 10 months — and could be extended up to six years.

Under the W-2 and W-3 programs, employers would have the option of providing a housing stipend for guest workers instead of being mandated to do so.

Petrocco said he gave up on using the existing H-2A visa program three years ago and began relying on local workers.

But, in doing so, he experienced an abundance of turnover.

Without enough workers in the fields at harvest time, the Petroccos estimate that they lost about $150,000 worth of vegetables in the fields in 2011.

Last year, the losses didn’t add up to be quite as much, he said, but there were still losses.

“We always have enough workers until about mid-August, when the high school and college kids go back to school,” Petrocco said. “But mid-August is when our harvest picks up, and we’re in full swing until October. Because we’ve been short on workers, a lot of vegetables have gone bad before being harvested.”

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., was a member of the “Gang of Eight” that spearheaded the drafting of the Senate’s immigration reform bill.

Petrocco, because of the hardships he experienced due to labor shortages at harvest time, was invited to take part in talks with Bennet’s staff as the senator helped piece together the bill.

Bennet has described immigration reform as a necessity for Colorado’s agriculture industry, which has a $40 billion impact on the state’s economy — the second-largest, trailing only the oil and gas industry.

Agriculture organizations in a number of states have listed worker shortages as one of the biggest issues negatively impacting their ag industries.

The lack of U.S. residents wanting to do the work and having an “unworkable” federal guest worker program in place has created another issue: a plethora of undocumented agriculture workers in the U.S.

Industry experts estimate that 50-70 percent of the current agricultural workforce is undocumented.

The Senate’s immigration reform bill would allow these workers to establish legal status and work authorization.

Under the bill, undocumented farm workers who can demonstrate a minimum of 100 work days or 575 hours working in agriculture over the past two years would be eligible for an Agricultural Blue Card.

Blue Card holders would be allowed to live and work in the country legally, and travel between the U.S. and their home country. These workers would have a faster path to citizenship than the broader undocumented population.

The House is still in the process of drafting its immigration reform bill.

In an interview with The Tribune last month, U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., described the Senate’s bill as “a good first step.”

“The details, the programs, the language itself may be sufficient, but I think there are timing issues that are going to have to be worked out between the House and the Senate,” Gardner noted. “That actually gives me a great deal of confidence, because if it’s just that timing issue, I think that can be worked out.”